Grahm sat in the command chair looking at the viewscreen as the large piece of rock loomed closer. He turned to the sound of the turbolift doors opening and saw both Darkan and Stonn exit. The tactical officer graciously stood to allow his captain to take his place.

"Nothing new to report at the moment, sir," John told Darkan. "I had Pushkin change course and cruise back towards the planetoid, but nothing more."

Stonn went to his station and immediately put his face to his sensor hood.

[OOC:] Hey Shawn, anytime you say that Stonn is going to scan or analyze, go ahead and throw a Sys Ops (Sensors) test. I will evaluate any results based on the dice roll. Thanks.

For now, don't worry about it. See the PM for what Stonn receives.

The Columbia's sensors sweep out over the distance to the small planetoid and Stonn's console begins to scroll data. The Vulcan took it all in via his sensor hood which sorted the information by the most basic to the more detailed.

"Sir, the size and composition of the planetoid is similar to that of Earth's moon," said Stonn. "Nickel-iron core, point-six gee on the surface, roughly 6,000 kilometers in circumference. It has no atmosphere, and is not in orbit of any planetary or solar body... it seems to be a rogue planetoid."

He leaned into his viewer once again, then spoke slowly, as if he couldn't believe what he was saying."I am reading no power emanations... but I am reading... interesting - tunnels with clearly large metallic latticework."

He turned to face Darkan."The tunnels are not natural, sir. But with no power readings, there is no way to pinpoint the signal."

"Would moving closer to the planetoid to yield such information? Is there a centralized area within the latticework that could be habitation? Can you determine if there is a liveable environment within?"

"Sir, the computer has run the signal through the whole library of of languages and algorithms, but nothing is coming of it," replied the comm station crewman. "It seems to be nothing but noise, but we were definitely the intended receiver of the transmission."

He turned back to his console, "There it is again."

Grahm interjected, "Captain, I just want to bring back to the fore that we are in the middle of unfriendly territory with a ship out there somewhere."

Grahm stared blankly. He had no input as to how they could investigate this particular new puzzle and commence their departure from Klingon space - something that seemed the wisest based on the ship's current condition.

Yet, it was Starfleet's mandate to explore new worlds and new intelligence. He remained silent, leaving the decision to his captain and glad that the weight was not on his shoulders.

Stonn understood the situation; he would have liked to investigate further, but exposing the Romulans' plot was of far greater importance.

"I do not understand the reference to tree nuts, sir, but perhaps if we can make the Romulans' motives clear to the proper Klingon families, we might be able to investigate the planetoid afterwards... perhaps the Klingons will be... grateful enough to allow us to study it?"

The helmsman activated the controls that brought the Columbia's warp engines online and the ship began to accelerate until in a flash, it warped away from the small planetoid called Kirelius 19A. The mystery of the transmission left behind.

All hoped that the days of travel necessary to escape Klingon space would be uneventful, but the Neutral Zone was a long way away.

"Steady as she goes," said Darkan as he sat back down into his chair and activity returned to normal on the bridge.

[OOC:] As you guys know, my brain has a hard time thinking in two genres at once and so our Star Trek game is going to go on a short hiatus. In the meantime, I will be seeing some of you in my Lord of the Rings games.

I will return to our story and crew soon to see what next tale can be weaved.

Seppun1, I will contact you via e-mail or PM when the game re-commences. You'll be around here anyway with your Stargate game, but I will still give you a heads up.